For me, Archmage kills caster- and Warcries kill melee-diversity.

Caster: Not going MoM means I have 42% less EHP and going MoM means Archmage is a nobrainer. I've already played a bunch of Archmage builds so that's not very interesting (trees really don't vary pretty much at all).

Melee: Not going for a slam skill means you give up a ridiculous amount of damage. So you end up with a slow attacking playstyle every time, which starts to feel pretty identical after a few different skills.



This complete lack of balancing is killing the replayability for me... I've had my concerns in this past but this is insane.

Why would anyone think that postponing balance makes it any easier? It's infeasible to do in just a one-and-done patch, there's way too many varaiables.
Micro-adjustments could make the game feel fresh and diverse. And the amount of time it takes to do a half-assed job (that would SUFFICE) is minimal. This shit doesn't even remotely need to be done perfectly.

my thoughts exactly

self-casting in general is on rails. the long list of 'you just have to use this' is just too long. and you can fit them all into one build, thus all the successful builds look very similar. after that there is a question of skill you use - same story, why use skill B if skill A is not only numerically stronger but mechanically as well?
then there is the sad story of self-cast in a game that forces you to move all the time (enter mines, totems, summoners, DoTs - proxy damage dealers in genera)


melee..

a 2h-only skill that is not a slam has no place in the game. sweep exists and it can do 'some' damage but slams are built the same yet are simply numerically stronger. Voidforge alone wont make this skill shine

all other gems feed on attack speed. ive tried bruteforcing 2h sword (legacy 800+ pdps starforge, so not a slouch) Lancing/Shattering steel to see if that makes any sense. nope.

for hit based builds:
2h - slams, otherwise you miss like 100-200% more damage for a bonus of being slow
everything else is attack speed or bust. that makes non-sword weapon bases redundant.

i wonder who thought it makes any sense do give 2aps swords free crit multi while maces get '20% increased burp duration' or something.

Casters can also go ES/CI or lowlife with either Shavs or Ivory (both of which work very differently) and there are plenty of ways to go mom/agnostic without using Archemage. After two nerfs Archemage isn't even strictly better than the same skill without it plus many skills don't make sense with Archemage at all. Your single hits may do more damage but your means of actually doing burst damage, against Sirus for example are very limited as you can't spam your skill. Unless you go with forboding manaflask spam i guess but that's like the most horrible way of playing i ever had to endure so i don't really count that. All those versions can have just as much, if not more EHP than a MOM build. Pure life casters suck obviously but they are the budget version for leaguestarts, nothing you should use into end game.


Melee you have Cyclone and Lacerate, Flickerstrike, Bladestorm, Bladeflurry, Viper Strike, Double Strike, Wild Strike, Pestilence Strike and Frostblades as far as really good non slam skills go. If you are good enough at making builds that list easily doubles but those are the ones even a monkey can make work.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Melee you have Cyclone and Lacerate, Flickerstrike, Bladestorm, Bladeflurry, Viper Strike, Double Strike, Wild Strike, Pestilence Strike and Frostblades as far as really good non slam skills go. If you are good enough at making builds that list easily doubles but those are the ones even a monkey can make work.

Most of those skills kinda suck, you can make builds out of them sure, but other than Cyclone, lacerate and maybe bladeflurry everything else there kinda sucks to play and needs to be super ramped up by gear to remotely play and function well compared to the better options. (also strike skills in general kinda suck to play due to the necessity of 1 or 2 utility jewels just to give them good clear not to mention the weird one-two hit thing GGG implemented during legion league that makes no sense and completely sucks from a design standpoint. With frost blades doing okay without utility but additional strike targets is nice on it, not great at single target in comparison though.)


And did you really add flickerstrike to your list????? The skill that requires you to use 1 of 2 unique swords, a chestpiece or a combo of unique boots and a jewel (and most likely the slayer ascendancy) just to make it work mostly on its own though you may still need to self use frenzy once in a while and then you'll still die to the self bleed on occasion if you go the route that is reliable and doesn't restrict your weapon or occasionally have it stop working and die to mobs. Don't get me wrong, when it goes it's entertaining and fun to watch/play but simply due to it's mostly uncontrollable nature and requirements for frenzy charges it isn't a good skill (honestly the damage output and lack of control on it don't really warrant the frenzy charge requirement at all)

It takes like 50 EX to even start playing an Aurastacker and that build is considered pretty good from what i've heard so i don't see how having to reach a certain gear threshold to make a build work is a valid argument against the viability of a build. Toxic Rain is as meta as it gets and good look trying to kill AL8 Sirus with it without some +3 gem level bow that costs at least 4 EX. Compared to that a golden oil annointment and a few alchs + awakener orb for Tribal fury annoint and hunter gloves isn't even expensive. Plus you can just use AC support instead and just swap for endgame bosses. Takes like 2 seconds every 20 maps or so, not exactly a big deal. Projectile based builds swap GMP all day for single target and nobody complains about that. I've played most of those skills myself, have some of them on active duty as of now and they work just fine all with their individual strenghts and weaknesses ofc but that's how it should be.

As for Flicker Strike, i included it because it's the 4th highest melee skill on POE Ninja in terms of usage. Personally i would never consider it as a main skill for a build due to it's uncontrollable nature but if clear is all you care about, there is hardly a better choice available. There are plenty of ways to generate frenzy charges nowadays you can literally choose your favorite and roll with it.

I was purely talking melee, Aurastackers are pretty op in general so a high entry cost is fine and toxic rain (like all Chaos DoT skill) does need help to deal with end game but that's just in the nature of chaos dot skills for some reason. Bow characters (unless they're bleed or poison) usually just have a clear setup and a single target setup with barrage since they have two 6-links.

But the issues I was complaining about is that those melee strike skills needing help to clear from some sort of utility for clear and then needing to gem swap for bosses like you mentioned is something things like slams don't have. Your clear setup and boss setup is the same. (Cyclone being the super op skill from legion is the same way) Skills that along with having utility loops to jump through so they can perform as clear tools and then gem swapping for damage and in the end don't compare to other things in the game at all.

It's why a lot of people still complain about melee being in a bad place because most of the skills don't feel good to play without good investment and utility on the melee playing field where cyclone and slams can get going really easily and stay strong for a while without that investment and without the need of utility like AC or melee splash.

I've played all those skills too, I'm a theorycrafter and an altaholic that goes through a multitude of builds every league constantly deleting character to make more rather than getting to or grinding end game content. And every time I try to get a majority of the melee skills rolling they just feel worse to play than alternatives and don't really have good points over the alternatives to make up for what they lack. (melee isn't the only place like this obviously since there are spells and ranged attacks that fall under the radar since they underperform compared to the other skills and don't bring anything great to the table)

The thing about flickerstrike being 4th in melee skill on poe.ninja is surprising, guess it's because the skill is fun when it works though it is extremely unsafe and inconsistent in most cases.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Toxic Rain is as meta as it gets and good look trying to kill AL8 Sirus with it without some +3 gem level bow that costs at least 4 EX. Compared to that a golden oil annointment and a few alchs + awakener orb for Tribal fury annoint and hunter gloves isn't even expensive.

ever heard of opportunity cost? by HAVING to use one specific anoint and particular glove pair you ROB yourself of other, better options. if spending one golden oil is not a problem, spending 3 should be fine too - hello +1 curse. just an example of what opportunity cost is.

builds that dont have to do that are by default BETTER.



strike skills do require certain crutches to work in the first place. while offering NOTHING in return. damage effectiveness of shit skills like Heavy Strike, Dual Strike is laughable. AOE skills easily match it while being free to invest build resources into something else than mandatory crutches. numbers on skills' damage are on wiki, anyone can see them.
i would like anyone to explain why Dual Strike exist in the first place. what is the point of Cleave? why Sweep is still in the game when slams exist that beat it in every imaginable way.. the list go on and on

yeah, you can make them work - i did - but there is 'works' and WORKS. strike skills that WORK pretty much universally go full banana (abyssus, saviour, bottled fait, crit swords) - or dual nebuloch :) if someone likes that.

that part about toxic rain is so fun that ill leave it here for others to rip it apart. it is complete bollocks.


there is a reason why the only melee presence on the ladders looks like this: Slams, Slams, Slams, lacerate (melee dot is in good place, sadly - pretty boring with just 2 skills to pick) and cyclone

everything else? if it is so good i wonder why noone plays it? are all these ladder players stupid or something? they gimp themselves on purpose NOT playing these great, easy to gear strike skills? cost shouldnt matter in ssf and little in HC - so why is that? huh?

I disagree strongly with most of the complaints here...

Yes of course there are gimp skills that basically should just be thrown in the trash that NOONE uses. However, it sounds like the OP has just gone into cookie cutter mode and checked top dps poe ninja builds and found all the information there...

There are TONS of melee builds that work well into endgame, high clear speed, high survivability, all content etc. They may not have the same max numbers as the next melee build but who the fuck cares when the difference is killing shaper in 5 seconds vs 2 seconds? Counterattacks (reckoning), cyclone, slams, frost blades, pestilent strike, flicker strike, dominating blow, double strike, dual strike, ALL of these are major powerhouses and I'm sure there are more there that I just haven't tried yet. Slams are the top mostly because they only recently got a major rework and veteran players are having fun pushing the limits of "new" skills. Flicker is absolutely not locked behind multiple uniques, basically you need to figure out how to generate mana and frenzy charges. Farrul's fur makes this easy which is why so many flicker builds use it, but there are other ways to make it work too if you just stop and think a little.

Regarding spellcasters, as one of the other guys mentioned, you can go CI, LL, MoM, or life and all play differently. SOOO many spells to choose from that all clear ridiculously well and make mincemeat of endgame content. Sure, there will always be 1 or 2 ultra powerful spells, and theres always some that are complete trash. But you have EK, arc, traps, mines, minions, chaos spells, BV, VD, BL (nerfed but still very strong), FP, novas, brands...

Lastly, aurastacker is not a "build"...aurastacker is an endgame addition to any pre-existing build. You can aurastack any melee skill, aurastack any spell, aurastack minions, aurastack chaos skills, etc. It takes a ton of currency because it is min-maxing and pushing ANY of these builds to their limits.

Whenever I hear someone complaining about meta and how theres only a few "usable" skills, it just screams of someone who stopped actually thinking and playing the game and just reads the top 5 builds each league and runs them brainlessly.

as far as being forced into specific gearing options...that is literally the staple of ALL rpg games. Your build is based on your gear and your gear is based on your build.

Don't wanna play melee with swords? Pick up axe nodes and accuracy. Just as much or comparable dps, just a different tree. Don't wanna play axe or sword, pick up staff nodes. So many different ways to utilize different gear just as effectively.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

There are TONS of melee builds that work well into endgame, high clear speed, high survivability, all content etc. They may not have the same max numbers as the next melee build but who the fuck cares when the difference is killing shaper in 5 seconds vs 2 seconds? Counterattacks (reckoning), cyclone, slams, frost blades, pestilent strike, flicker strike, dominating blow, double strike, dual strike, ALL of these are major powerhouses and I'm sure there are more there that I just haven't tried yet.

reckoning got its flat damage cut by 75% so it no longer counts. and that worked only with one build..

but you got my attention when you implied that Dual Strike is a powerhouse.

care to share any form of build/description etc? i wonder how did you make that happen. that gem requires BOTH splash source and +strikes source while not really having damage.

having seeing your char rooster i would like you actually play, say Dual Strike, and compare it to your meta builds you have. how the performance compares in early, mid and late phase of character development. how much does it cost to make it work etc etc.